She flung the ruined tourte into the darkened piazza with one of her muttered Venetian oaths, and I watched a beggar hitch his crutch to scrabble it up. “Largesse to the crowds,” I said. “Sugared tourtes instead of bread; well, the Borgias do like to be flamboyant. Even in their acts of charity.”

“Everything could have been taken down in baskets for distribution!” She gave her hands an angry swipe across her apron. “Not just heaved out the window like scraps tossed for dogs. Three hundred pounds of sweets, and at least half are out here crushed into the ground! Weeks I spent working—you could recite two rosaries for how long each of those strawberry tourtes took. I didn’t even sleep last night, I—”

Her angular shoulders sagged, and I wondered if she’d even registered whom she was talking to. Carmelina Mangano was usually careful to avoid my company. Probably because I could rarely dodge the temptation to ruffle her easily ruffled feathers. “Cheer up,” I said, giving a deliberately familiar pat to her hip. “Surely you wouldn’t grudge the beggars of Rome a taste of your confections. Or are the fruits of your labor reserved only for the great?”

“If the great bother to eat them!” A burst of music and laughter issued from the brightly lit windows above, and she glanced up. “I suppose the celebrations will go on till dawn.”

“Till the bride goes to bed, at least.”

“Such a little thing to be a wife.”

“Oh, they won’t bed her down with Lord Sforza yet. Consummation of the marriage, by the Pope’s decree, is to wait at least another six months out of consideration for her tender youth.”

“A kind father.”

“A practical one. If the marriage goes unconsummated, he can annul it should a better match present itself.”

“What, so all this was wasted? The fifteen-thousand-ducat dress, and the wedding banquet, and my sweets?” Another bitter glance out at the piazza of smashed pastries.

“What’s a little waste to a pope?”

It was the most civil exchange we’d ever had, this lanky prickly cook and me. Weariness and darkness, I suppose, can turn any conversation cordial out of sheer exhaustion. Her voice was almost friendly . . . just as long as we were speaking of neutral things, anyway. Weddings and food and anything, really, except herself.

And I found that strange, because I’ve never known a woman who didn’t like to talk about herself with an attentive man. Even a small man like me.

“I don’t suppose you bothered to try any of my sweets.” Carmelina slanted a glance at me, arms still folded across her breasts in challenge. The torchlight from the papal guards cut harsh shadows across her strong nose and long jaw. “You don’t eat more than a bird, Messer Leonello!”